COURTNEY BAR­NETT & KURT VILE Lotta Sea Lice ★★★★ Marathon

Bar­nett and Vile’s col­lab­o­ra­tion works be­cause it is a fully re­alised vi­sion, with a warm in­ti­macy and short­hand. There is a sar­donic slant put on the ev­ery­day, par­tic­u­larly on Over Ev­ery­thing, a song that Vile pre­vi­ously started in 2015 with Bar­nett in mind, and the ful­crum of that jour­ney is all joy­ous louche-rock-in-space. With Bar­nett’s gift for sto­ry­telling, and Vile’s sense of un­furl­ing, im­mer­sive melody, the record wan­ders around drawl­ing gui­tars, mel­low per­cus­sion, and bril­liant vo­cals that of­ten re­sem­ble a singing con­ver­sa­tion. Par­tic­u­lar high­lights in­clude the jan­gling Let it Go, the swing­ing Blue Cheese, and the min­i­mal

Peepin’ Tom, which sounds like old souls break­ing new ground. As they sing of ec­cen­tric ex­pe­ri­ences on Un­to­gether, they couldn’t be more uni­fied. court­ney­bar­net­tand­kurtvile.com